Forget smartwatches, this is the wrist-worn wearable you need

Smartwatches will probably take off at some point. Apple’s iWatch will definitely help and once that launch is behind us, Samsung will probably start to put more marketing muscle behind its own smartwatch offerings. For the time being, however, smartwatches currently on the market are pretty weak. They offer precious little in the way of truly compelling functionality, leaving users with an unnecessary device that is yet another gadget to charge all the time.

The Ritot, however, is a smart wrist-worn wearable that might actually be worth checking out.

The team behind the Ritot bills it as the world’s first projection watch. Instead of displaying the time and other information on a tiny screen, as current watches do, the Ritot projects images from the band onto the back of the wearer’s hand.

Beyond the time, Ritot also connects to your smartphone and displays notifications.

As cool as all that sounds, there’s a catch: the Ritot doesn’t actually exist yet. It’s currently a crowdfunding project on Indiegogo, and it has raised more than $185,000 so far. The campaign’s goal was $50,000 though, so it looks like this nifty wearable is a done deal.

The Ritot is expected to begin shipping to Indigogo backers in early 2015. In the meantime, here’s a video: